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A review by albatrossonhalfpointe
The Loving Spirit by Daphne du Maurier
2.0
This book suffered from what I personally would call Stendhal Syndrome, if not for the fact that Stendhal Syndrome is actually a thing, which has nothing whatsoever to do with what I’m talking about. What I’m referring to is the fact that while I absolutely loved the first Stendhal book I read (Scarlet and Black), I really kind of hated the second (The Charterhouse of Parma). Similar situation here. I loved Rebecca. It was compelling, atmospheric, and just generally a great read. This one, not so much.
For starters, it was kind of a family saga, which, as a general rule, I don’t love. I just don’t love having to meet and try and get invested in three or four different sets of characters in the span of one book. Especially as there’s usually a disproportionate amount of time devoted to that first one, so that when they die (they inevitably do), it feels like the book should be done, and the other generations kind of feel tacked on.
This book definitely suffered from that. The heart of the story, in theory, I think, was the relationship between Janet and Joseph. More on that in a minute. I can see, sort of, how that relationship in turn affected Joseph’s relationship with his son, but frankly, I don’t think it spilled down into the son’s relationship with his daughter. As a result, I don’t really even know what the point of including the daughter was. In fact, I don’t really know what Du Maurier was trying to say in general. It was nice the way things kind of came full circle, maybe with the relationships aligned as they were supposed to be, rather than the rather twisted first iteration of the soulmate situation. Maybe that was the point? I don’t know.
But yeah. That relationship. OK, I get that the mother-child bond is an intense one, and that it probably should be (helps to ensure the continuity of the species), but there are limits, and the Janet-Joseph relationship definitely went way into creepy territory. And the result of that was that I couldn’t really get invested in either of those two. Mostly they just made me uncomfortable, which I don’t think was the point, although who knows.
I’m still going to read more du Maurier books. But I really hope that most of them are more like Rebecca and less like The Loving Spirit.
For starters, it was kind of a family saga, which, as a general rule, I don’t love. I just don’t love having to meet and try and get invested in three or four different sets of characters in the span of one book. Especially as there’s usually a disproportionate amount of time devoted to that first one, so that when they die (they inevitably do), it feels like the book should be done, and the other generations kind of feel tacked on.
This book definitely suffered from that. The heart of the story, in theory, I think, was the relationship between Janet and Joseph. More on that in a minute. I can see, sort of, how that relationship in turn affected Joseph’s relationship with his son, but frankly, I don’t think it spilled down into the son’s relationship with his daughter. As a result, I don’t really even know what the point of including the daughter was. In fact, I don’t really know what Du Maurier was trying to say in general. It was nice the way things kind of came full circle, maybe with the relationships aligned as they were supposed to be, rather than the rather twisted first iteration of the soulmate situation. Maybe that was the point? I don’t know.
But yeah. That relationship. OK, I get that the mother-child bond is an intense one, and that it probably should be (helps to ensure the continuity of the species), but there are limits, and the Janet-Joseph relationship definitely went way into creepy territory. And the result of that was that I couldn’t really get invested in either of those two. Mostly they just made me uncomfortable, which I don’t think was the point, although who knows.
I’m still going to read more du Maurier books. But I really hope that most of them are more like Rebecca and less like The Loving Spirit.